Selyse Baratheon

Wife of Stannis Baratheon and mother of his only child, Shireen, Queen Selyse is an acolyte of Melisandre of Asshai and zealous in her devotion. A Florent by birth, she is very tall and thin, and with a thin line of hair on her upper lip and protuding ears, she is quite plain.

Tara Fitzgerald is notably better looking than the character in the novel. Selyse’s stillbirths and miscarriages of sons may be correct, but her being warped preservation of their bodies and their display in her own rooms is an invention of the show. The role was played by an extra at the start of the second season, but not seen after one brief scene.

Spoilers

Season Three

After Stannis seeks her out, Selyse reveals the depths of her devotion to his destiny and to Melisandre by showing her awareness of the sexual relationship between the two, only saying that she thanks the Lord of Light that Melisandre could give Stannis the son she could not. Selyse is greatly troubled by having failed to give Stannis a living son, so much so that she has had the infant corpses of the stillborn sons she did bear preserved in jars which she keeps in her chambers.